Vancouver’s Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is an oasis in the middle of a busy city, a place to rest and reflect on a garden tradition that reached its peak in the Ming dynasty (1358-1644). In accord with the Taoist philosophy of yin and yang that guides the garden’s design, the aim is to balance opposing…
Yesterday I arrived in Edinburgh and tomorrow I begin a tour of gardens in southern Scotland and northern England. This tour is similar to one I hosted last September, which means I’ll be taking this year’s group to many of the same places I visited then. On the 2015 tour I was seeing some gardens for…
Yesterday’s Open Garden Day was a fabulously exhausting experience. Some 325 people attended, and the feed-back was incredibly positive. Best of all, we raised over $6000 for the Massawippi Foundation — which means we can keep building trails through the land we’ve conserved, opening to the public a beautiful area previously inaccessible and helping more and more…
For the last few weeks, everything and everyone at Glen Villa has been focused on preparing for the first (annual?) Open Garden Day on August 4. Twenty volunteers are primed and ready to go, each assigned to a three hour time slot and to a specific area in the garden. When one of the volunteers asked…
Sir Frederick Gibberd was an English architect, landscape designer and town planner. His design for Harlow New Town, generally regarded as the most successful of Britain’s post-WWII developments, is his greatest achievement. His garden is his most personal. Located in Essex on the outskirts of the town he designed, the garden is little known…
Memorials are tricky things to get right. In the past, when heroes were celebrated and the power of rulers was exalted in monuments that forced ordinary people to crane their necks skywards, understanding a memorial was easy. A man on horseback was a triumphant military leader. A statue elevated on a Greek-style plinth was a politician, or perhaps…
Tree Rings, the sculpture I created to honour a maple tree at my garden Glen Villa, is featured in Garden Design Magazine’s on-line newsletter. I’m really pleased. Why wouldn’t I be? The article is a wow! Tree Rings Stainless Steel Sculpture – Garden Design See how laser-cut stainless steel rings pay tribute to an ancient maple…
Magnolia Plantation is one of South Carolina’s premier attractions. Located on the Ashley River near Charleston, it bills itself as America’s last large-scale Romantic-style garden. It fits the definition. It is a garden where form, balance and symmetry are thrown to the wind, where views are calculated to appeal to emotion rather than reason and…
The Madoo Conservancy is a garden created over a period of almost forty years by the artist Robert Dash. Located in Sagaponack, New York, at the eastern end of Long Island, it is a destination garden, described as a magical oasis that evokes delight. It is a garden praised by many, including Rosemary Verey, the…
2015 was a bumper year for garden visits. I’m almost overwhelmed when I realize how many gardens I visited — well over 100 by a quick count. Some days, I found the experience exhausting; every day it was fun. My year of visiting gardens started in February when I saw two outstanding gardens in South Carolina. Middleton Place…